finally starting my 55/drum smoker Help?

rvking · Sep 11, 2007

I have been hunting parts for a few weeks and finally tonight my buddy is gonna do the welding for me.Basicly my plan is to weld the 2 drums end to end with two seperate doors and a 24x24 1/4 inch offset firebox with a lid mounted on top for loading charcoal/wood this will be mounted on a small utility trailer and used primarly for tailgating oh yeah the smokestack will probably be a piece of auto exhaust mounted opposite the firebox one thing I havent addressed yet is the interior shelves or the temp gauges as far as placement goes by the way these are new drums so no worry about oil/chemical residue this is the pit ive been wanting for a while now but I am definatly still a beginner any hints or tips are greatly appreciated thanks in advance for your help and I loook forward to hearing from everyone

catfish · Sep 11, 2007

Sounds like a great project. I am no expert but I beleive you would want a temp gauge around grate level on either end and middle. One thing I learned here is you can never have tooo many temp readings. If you can post some pics as you go we would like to see the progress. Thinking about moving onto a stick burner myself. As for the rest of your questions I bet someone will be around soon to answer them.

Good luck Paul

chris_harper · Sep 11, 2007

you will need an exhaust stack bigger than an auto exhaust pipe. for a 55- gallon drum, a 4" stack is about right. there is a formula in a thread here where you can figure out what size stack you need. for a double 55-gallon drum, more like 10"- i think. here is where the formula is.

i would put four thermos in it, at either end of each door, about 1-2" above the rack. if you have more levels of racks, put one at each level, all the way down the length of the pit. i would think every few feet i would put one.

for racks, use angle iron for the frames, and expanded metal for the actual rack. you could easily make three levels of racks in a 55-gallon on its side. i have one level in the smoker in my sig. the new one i am working on has two levels. i will have 4 thermos in it.

hope this helps.

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finally starting my 55/drum smoker Help?

rvking

Newbie

catfish

Meat Mopper

chris_harper

Master of the Pit

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